Topic Missy's Story Part 6: Innocence Abducted

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Missy

(OK.. so here is the 6th installment to Missy's backstory. I hope you enjoy it. Can you tell I must be back at work now? Hehehe.. plus I've not had a functioning Internet connection at work for the last two days -.- so it was actually either WORK... or write. Guess you know what I picked hehehe. Actually this only took me half a day today. The rest of the time I just LOOKED busy. And cute. I always look cute too. :P)

A thick-furred black wolf lifts his nose into the wind, hunting… searching… testing the cold current of wintry air for the distinctive scent of danger. Smelling nothing foreign or alarming, he bounds down a high ridge to the woman who waits below, resting on a rounded boulder. He nudges her leg with his wet nose and gives a short sharp bark and promptly wheels away, trotting through the forest once more. Weary of the constant need to keep moving, to keep pressing on, Missy heaves a sigh and rises to her feet, willing herself forward after him.

She picks up the small roughly made sac containing what few essentials they need for travel and her feet plod along, following the wolf tracks that break the skiff of snow that lines the ground. She shivers slightly inside the fur blanket she has fashioned into a rough cloak, pulling it more tightly against her as the wind freshens and hurls icy daggers at her. Missy cradles her left arm close to her body, a low aching throb thumping through it slowly in time with her heartbeat, the pain nagging and constant and made worse by the cold. The rest of her body is a mass of slowly mending aches and pains. Visible bruises mar her face and neck, a mottled collection of fading purple and blooming yellow. She bears it all stoically and only the pallor of her face and the fine lines around her mouth betray her discomfort. She walks on.

The wolf continues to race ahead to scout for danger, using his superior senses of sight and smell to scan the area for danger. Suddenly, the unmistakable odor of a human settlement washes past the moist quivering gland of his nose and he halts in his tracks, rough fur rising along his neck and down his back. A low muffled growl rumbles his curled lip and he whirls to race back to Missy, transforming back into his male half-human half-wolf form. He strides past a thicket of trees, his feet crunching through the icy crust of snow on the ground, completely nude. Missy lifts her eyes just as he breaks through the line of trees ahead and her breath is stolen not from the exercise that taxes her limited resources, but from the sight of his lean virile form, one whose musculature has become more defined after months of barely adequate sustenance coupled with hard physical activity.

“What?” she breathes “What is it?” and her breath plumes out of her in a wintry cloud as it encircles her head.

“Human encampment up ahead” he grunts briefly, reaching for and taking the sac from Missy’s numbed fingers. He pulls out his one pair of jeans and he tugs them on. “We might be able to steal a few things” he mutters briefly, composing a mental list of the items they need.

Missy’s eyes widen and she reaches out a hand to lay it against his arm. “Steal?” she asks, “Why don’t we just go talk to them and maybe they’ll give us what we need.” Her face is open and guileless and despite her most recent and nearly deadly encounter with a group of attackers, her initial instinct is to trust. Kaden shakes his head ruefully as he looks at her from under thick beetled brows. “I think not” he grunts. “Stay here. And I do mean… right… here…“ he emphasizes, his finger pointing forcefully at the ground in front of him. “I’m going to go see what I can scrounge. You’d better not even think of following me” he growls at her, more out of concern for her safety than from anger. Missy has a propensity to do as she pleases and he well knows this. He backs up his words with a meaningful scowl before he turns and heads back the way he came.

Missy sighs as she watches his retreating back, his muscles bunching and moving in rhythmic ripples in response to his motions. Brushing snow off a fallen log, she resigns herself to waiting for his return, knowing that if she so much as budges from this spot she’ll be risking life and limb when he returns. She huddles inside the blanket, drawing her feet up onto the log, tucking her knees under her chin.

Kaden’s feet silently and quickly eat up the ground between the forest and the edge of the human encampment. His bare feet pad along the ground quietly, the hardened soles of them barely registering the frigid icyness. He scans the area quickly, his eyes and ears alert. He hears the cry of an infant coming from a distance and he pauses, hovering on the edge of the wood. Roughly constructed houses line dirt roadways of a small village ahead. He slinks out of the forest and slides into the darkest shadows cast by the nearest house, keeping himself hidden from view, slipping silently into a nearby dark narrow passageway between two buildings. He looks up above him and he discovers lines of clothing stretched between the upper stories. He spies a man’s shirt that would likely fit him and he nimbly leaps from a tipped over crate to a low overhang, swinging himself up high enough for his hand to pluck at the shirt, ripping it from the line with a soft twang before landing back on his feet noiselessly in the center of the alley. He pulls on the shirt and buttons it, thankful more for the covering in case he runs into anyone than for the warmth of it, though he hopes not to be spotted at all, as his lycanthropy would be obvious and most likely make him the target of yet another hunt.

Kaden ventures further into the village, eyes scanning, senses heightened and aware. He falls back into the shadows of another building as a group of humans pass by, a loud raucous collection of half-drunken men stumbling out of a tavern, the smell of liquor and smoke roiling off of them in a cloud that stings Kaden’s sensitive nose. He bites back a snarl as he watches them go past, contempt etched on his face. He glances from one side of the street to another and spies no one else in the gathering gloom of early evening.

He darts into the alley between the tavern and a shuttered dry goods shop, looking for a back entrance into the deserted shop, in the hopes of replenishing some much needed food and basic survival items. He finds a back door and gripping the handle in a strong fist, he squeezes and turns it as far as it will go in one direction and jams his shoulder hard against the frame. The door remains shut but quivers, a sharp squeal of protest bursting from it. Kaden pauses as he listens, assessing whether or not anyone heard him and intends to investigate the source of the sound. The noise from the tavern seems to have masked the squeal and no one approaches. He turns the handle the other way this time and tries again, his powerful shoulder charging into the door near the jamb, exerting as much pressure as he can in this thrust. The door pops open and Kaden is glad he has a firm grip on the handle or it would have crashed into the wall. He slips inside and shuts it behind him as best he can, a telling crack between door and frame now visible to any who passed close by.

He pads quickly around the store, grabbing a rucksack and stuffing what things he and Missy will need. He packs a knife, several books of matches, packages of dried food, nonperishable items that will keep even in the cold. He wanders the aisles quickly, only taking what he feels Missy will be able to comfortably carry, since he intends to be in his wolf form for the majority of the time they’ll travel. He snatches a pair of jeans and a warm sweatshirt he thinks might fit her, as well as a pair of warm wool socks. Her feet are perpetually cold and the last thing he needs is for her to start losing toes. He pads to the back of the store and his eyes light up as he spots a medical kit. He quickly stuffs it into the pack muttering “this is one essential Missy has proven we can’t live without” to himself before slipping into a backroom. He spots a cloak hanging on a peg on the back wall and he snags this as well, throwing it around his shoulders and drawing up the hood, masking the lycan ears sprouting from his hair. He also spies a pair of shoes and he slips them on, only to discover they are much too small. He snorts and kicks them off again, electing to go barefoot instead. He hardly feels the cold anyway. Finally satisfied with what he’s managed to pilfer, Kaden stealthily slips back out the way he came, melting into the darkness, the soft rustle of the cloak the only sound that betrays his passage, heard and marked by no one.

Missy shifts on the frozen log, the cold penetrating the fur blanket and the jeans and sweater she wears. She cups her hands over her mouth and blows on her numb fingers, chills racing up and down her spine as she listens to the wind howl through the trees. The wintry breeze plucks at her hair, lifting the strands off her face and making them flutter around her head in a crimson cloud. She stares ahead through the trees, watching intently for Kaden’s return, even though she knows he’s not likely to come back this soon.

Goose bumps prickle up and down Missy’s arms and across the nape of her neck. Tiny hairs rise along her forearms… she sits up straighter; her breath catching in her throat as she abruptly feels the presence of something else near her; something watching… judging… lurking. Missy’s eyes scan from side to side in front of her, her head turning slowly first to the left and then to the right, the muscles in her neck creaking with tension. Missy’s head slowly reverses direction when out of the periphery of her vision a small movement draws her attention. She whips her head around instinctively, rising from her perch on the log and her heart stutters in her chest as her wide emerald eyes register a pair of blue ones… eyes she has seen before, from what now seems a lifetime ago. Her jaw drops agape as a man steps forward, hands lifting to lower a hood that covers a head topped with blonde curls.

Missy cannot move, can scarcely breathe as he swoops toward her, his footsteps unnaturally light as he rapidly covers the ground between them. Made mute by shock and disbelief, she utters not a sound, not even when he reaches her and sweeps her up into his strong rock hard arms and carts her away into the forest.

Wraithlike and just as silent, Kaden returns through the now pitch dark wood to the clearing where he left Missy. Even before he breaks through the line of trees, he knows something is wrong. The woods are too hushed; he cannot hear her breathing… cannot hear the familiar thump of her heart and rush of her blood. Missy’s scent lingers on the air and his nose quivers as he picks up a scent of something else in the clearing as well. A smell he has been waiting for… and dreading.

A low echoing growl rumbles in his chest as he enters the clearing and he stops… spotting the place where Missy had rested and then spotting the tracks of the interloper. The footsteps lead to the log and then beyond it… only one set he notes… one set that gleam in the pale light cast by the moon and stars. Wasting no time, he sets off in pursuit, hackles raised, muscles bunched, fury and ferocity raging through his veins.

He’ll be goddamned if he’s going to let a blood sucking parasite have Missy now…